Bayon was one of my favorite temples--my second favorite, actually. It's also one of the most iconic.
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| There you go, one extra-large head. |
Bayon is located inside Angkor Thom. The word 'angkor' means city, and Angkor Thom means "great city." The city has an 8-meter (26-foot) wall around it that is still standing today. Each side of the square wall is 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) long, making the 9 square kilometers (3.5 square miles). That's a big area!
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| The city of Siem Reap is that reddish area to the south. The airport is in the mid-left. You can see West Baray, the man-made lake, from the airport when you land. (East Baray has no water left in it.) |
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Angkor Wat is on the bottom left. Angkor Thom is just above it. It might not look big on the map,
but trust me, it's enormous. |
Because the temples are so far apart, most people hire drivers to get around. The drivers own little two-wheeled carriages pulled by motorbikes. This set-up is called a 'tuk-tuk.'
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| Mama in the tuk-tuk, talking to our lovely driver/tour guide, Mr. Kim. |
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| Mr. Kim driving us down the road. |
Tuk-tuks are efficient and surprisingly comfortable. The breeze feels great on a hot day, and if it starts to rain, no worries--there's a pull-down vinyl cover to keep you dry.
But back to Bayon. It originally had 49 towers (our driver/guide told us that there was one tower for each of the original provinces of the Khmer Empire, but I'm not totally sure) and 37 of them remain. Most of the towers probably had four faces carved on the sides, but not all remained intact over the centuries. There are around 200 giant face carvings in Bayon.
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| There's two more on the other side. |
When we visited Bayon the weather seemed awful. It was practically monsooning, which meant that my big fancy-pants camera (which requires two hands to use) couldn't come out of the bag. When it rained, I held my umbrella in one hand and my point-and-shoot camera in the other.
Interestingly, my point-and-shoot did a better job most days. I think it was the strange cloudy-but-bright lighting. But the rain ended up being a blessing! The rain kept the tourists away, kept us cool, and gave the whole place a strange and mystical lighting. We visited again on a clear day and were not quite as taken with the temple.
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| Check out those water marks on my camera. Between the humidity and my constant use in the rain, I still can't believe that thing didn't get water damage. (This is one of my favorite photos from the trip.) |
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| I did say 'monsooning,' right? |
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| Look at all that rain! |
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| The colors come from sediment that washes down differently in each area. |
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| That water is about 6 inches deep. Thank goodness for our tevas! |
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| Those shoes might be dorky and slightly reminiscent of crocs, but I wouldn't travel without them. |
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| These faces look similar, but most of the faces are different. |
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| I tried to hide from the rain. I failed. |
Looking down from the upper level, the flooding was even more obvious.
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| It's more like a canal than a walkway. |
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| People for scale. |
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| You can go inside there. It's really dark and there's a little shrine with a Buddha statue, some incense, and a freaky old bald lady who pops out of a dark corner to ask for money. Scary! |
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| The faces are really big! Also, we look super-cute in our raincoats. |
There's lots of places to walk inside, but unfortunately the 500-year-old roofing isn't so great and everything leaks. It's impossible to stay dry.
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| These steps down lead to a small lake. We took a different way down. |
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| Take a moment to check out the stone base. Intricate carvings all the way around! |
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| Another Lara Croft moment. |
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| On a dry day, I saw some local kids sitting up there. Noooo thanks. |
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| The face tower is built right into the structure. |
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| New profile picture? You betchya. |
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I love my mother dearly... but I cannot believe how bad her photos are.
You can't even see the face, which is the whole point of this photo spot. |
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Looking hot, right?
And by 'hot' I don't mean 'attractive,' I mean 'sweaty and overheated.' |
There was a popular spot to get a neat perspective photo of your nose touching the face's nose, so of course we tried... and failed miserably.
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| The face. |
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| Some other guy trying it. |
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| And another guy. |
Our pictures turned out really awful. Some people have great profiles, and others look like starved ogres. I learned an important lesson this day: some people are more photogenic from the front.
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| A brief moment without rain. |
We went back a few days later when it wasn't raining, and although Bayon was still pretty darn cool, I must really recommend a visit in the rain. It just felt so much more mystical and ethereal!
Bayon does have a small moat around it. It's pretty but I wouldn't want to walk through it.
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| Such a gorgeous temple! |
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| A moat. The person wearing green is a weeding lady. They work in teams, they're everywhere, and like most of the Cambodian adults we saw, they never seem to actually be working. |
Check out the reflection in the moat!
And one last dry-day panorama shot, because I really love panoramas:
Bayon was my second favorite, but I'd still give it a 10/10 on the awesomeness scale. Definitely something to stick on your bucket list!
Cheers,
Ashton
